Portugal & Spain - Quest for Monopoly in the East

By the time of
Henry's death in
1460, private entrepreneurs had begun
to play a more important role in
African expeditions, and by the mid
1470s the Portuguese had established
trade links with tribes on Africa's Gold
Coast (modern Ghana) and were
taking enormous amounts of gold out
of Africa and back to Europe. In 1488,
Bartolomeu Dias led the first
successful expedition around the
southern tip of Africa and into the
Indian Ocean, and he was followed a
decade later by Vasco da Gama.

Christopher Columbus,
a Genoese sailor, had become convinced that the
African route could be shortened
considerably by heading due west into
the Atlantic. He first went to the
Portuguese with his proposal but was
rebuffed and so sought sponsorship
from
Ferdinand V and Isabella I of
Spain. On August 2, 1492 he set sail
with his small fleet of three ships.
Early in October he landed in the
Bahamas, then went on to explore the
Caribbean islands of Cuba and
Hispaniola. A settlement was
established on Hispaniola (Haiti) as a
result of his return visit the following
year.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese were
tightening their grip on the trade route
to India opened by Vasco da Gama.
They were determined to exclude not
only other Europeans but also the
Arabs from these lucrative markets.
For the moment, the Portuguese were
even willing to espouse a
commonality in their venture with
other Christian states not yet perceived
as a threat to their monopolistic
desires:

It is true that there does exist a common
right to all to navigate the seas and in
Europe we recognize the rights which
others hold against us; but the right does
not extend beyond Europe and therefore
the Portuguese as Lords of the Sea are
justified in confiscating the goods of all
those who navigate the seas without their
permission.

Superior naval power, in part the
result of recent technological advances
in armament, enabled the Portuguese
to smash Moslem opposition in the
Indian Ocean and thereby gain control
of the spice trade. The Moslems,
learning rather quickly from these
encounters, built up their land forces
on the European model and managed
to repulse further encroachments into
Moslem territory. This was, however,
another case of an emerging and
aggressive society creating havoc for a
society characterized by a high degree
of cooperative organization and
tolerance. To underscore this point,
historian G.B. Sansom quotes the
observations of a fifteenth century
traveler in the Arab world:

Security and justice are so firmly
established that the merchants bring
thither from maritime countries
considerable cargoes, which they unload
and unhesitatingly send to the markets
and bazaars, without thinking of the
necessity of checking the accounts or
watching over the goods. ...Every ship,
whatever place it may come from or
wheresoever it may be bound, when it
puts into this port is treated like other
vessels and has no trouble of any kind to
put up with.

At least to some considerable
extent, these Arab states had
discovered the benefits of open and
free commerce. The European empire-builders, on the other hand, viewed the
quest for wealth as what economist
Lester Thurow has called a "zero sum
game" in which there must be a loser
for every winner. Thus, to accomplish
their objective of monopolizing trade
with the Orient, the Portuguese had to
somehow break up this peaceful
arrangement and did so by
concentrating their naval power
against the Arabs. They first seized
two islands that controlled access to
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, then
attacked and captured the city of
Malacca, which commanded the strait
through which all commerce with the
Orient had to pass. By establishing a
small number of strategically-located
military bases throughout the Indian
Ocean, the Portuguese thereby
achieved (for a time) a significant
degree of control over the trade
between Europe and the Far East. At
great expense in the maintenance of
these fortresses and naval forces, a
small number of merchants, the
Portuguese crown and the aristocracy
were assured of ever greater personal
wealth. As is consistent with every
case presented thus far in this work,
those who actually produced wealth
were forced to absorb the burden of
higher prices for survival goods as
well as cover the expenses of the
State. These circumstances have been
readily identified in both the
Portuguese and Spanish socio-political
structures by historian Eric Wolf:

In both kingdoms royal control of
commerce enhanced the power of the
kingship and provided a tribute-taking elite
with wealth to purchase goods abroad
without altering the tributary structure at
home. Yet in both countries that wealth
did not suffice to cover the costs of
administration and war. Royal
bankruptcies and debts transferred control
of exchequer and trade to foreign
merchant-bankers...

External factors also contributed to
the eventual displacement of Portugal
in Africa and Asia by northern
Europeans. Firstly, the land route for
trade with Asia still competed quite
successfully because of Moslem and
Turk resistance, corruption among
Portuguese officials, and the large
number of shipwrecks that occurred
during the long journeys. The cost of
competing with the Portuguese had
been too high for Spain. After only
one ship from Magellan's fleet
returned, the Spaniards abandoned
their attempts to challenge the
Portuguese in the Orient. When the
Portuguese finally gave up their
hegemonic position to a new hierarchy
of European states, they did so to the
economically more powerful Dutch
and English. And, from this point on
the balance of power in Asia
substantially shifted in favor of the
northern Europeans. Another factor in
removing Spain from the competition
for Asian footholds was the promise
of creating an empire in the Americas,
which satisfied the desire for land
among the younger sons of Spanish
nobles who were not in line for
inheriting estates back home.